Shudder renews 'Creepshow' for Season 3 and orders new horror anthology showcasing Black talent

Viewer beware, you're in for even more scares. Shudder has renewed Greg Nicotero's Creepshow reboot for a third season ahead of the Season 2 premiere this April, the spine-tingling platform confirmed Thursday. 

A sophomore outing of the horror anthology was ordered in October 2019, but production was delayed for several months by the COVID-19 health crisis. Nevertheless, the crew was still able to deliver holiday specials for Halloween (an animated venture) and Christmas ("Shapeshifters Anonymous") in October and December of last year. The third season of six episodes is set to air later this year. Its truncated episode count (for comparison, Season 2 has nine installments) is most likely a reflection of the pandemic.

“During our Season 2 production, Shudder was so pleased with what they were seeing that they asked us to roll right into production on a brand-new third season that will feature some of our most ambitious stories yet,” Nicotero, who serves as executive producer and showrunner, said in a statement. “I’m incredibly thankful to the team at Shudder for the opportunity to continue honoring the genre with more gleefully ghoulish tales over not one, but two new seasons of Creepshow this year.”

“Two years ago, Greg Nicotero and his team revived the beloved Creepshow franchise with a spectacular first season followed by two ambitious specials, raising the bar for what a horror anthology series can be,” added Craig Engler, Shudder’s General Manager.  “We’re thrilled to bring Shudder members two more seasons this year, with new episodes that are even bigger, better, more shocking, and hilarious, and that truly live up to the show’s tag line, ‘The most fun you’ll ever have being scared.’”

Watch the bloody Season 2 trailer (featuring The Thing's Keith David) below:

The AMC-owned streaming service has also placed an order for a new horror anthology that will showcase Black screenwriters and directors. The aim is to expand the legacy of Black genre filmmaking, whose first hundred years were explored in the 2019 documentary, Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror.

Tananarive Due (My Soul to Keep) and Steven Barnes (Lion's Blood); Ezra C. Daniels (BTTM FDRS); Victor LaValle (The Ballad of Black Tom); and Al Letson (State of the RE:Union) are attached to the currently untitled project, which is scheduled to hit Shudder and AMC+ later this year. Dr. Robin R. Means Coleman, author of Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present — which led to the documentary — is serving as a consultant along with Horror Noire producers Phil Nobile Jr, Ashlee Blackwell, and Kelly Ryan. Blackwell co-wrote the 2019 feature, while Nobile Jr. is also known as the Editor-in-Chief of Fangoria Magazine.

“When we saw the first cut of our Horror Noire documentary, we realized there was a huge untapped reservoir of great Black horror stories that needed to be told, and an extremely talented group of writers and directors ready to tell them,” Engler said. “While the documentary was a look back at the history of Black horror, this anthology is a showcase for the future and will introduce audiences to fantastic new stories and characters.”

And finally, one more horrific goody was announced today: AMC Networks’s RLJE Films and Shudder acquired the North American rights to new horror film Jakob’s Wife, ahead of its world premiere at this year’s SXSW Film Festival.

Directed by Travis Stevens (Girl on the Third Floor) and starring Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator, You’re Next) and Larry Fessenden (Habit, Stake Land), Jakob’s Wife follows Anne, who is dismayed and bored by her 30-year marriage to… you guess it, Jakob, a small-town minister. “After a chance encounter with ‘The Master,’ she discovers a new sense of power and an appetite to live bigger and bolder than before,” reads the release. “As Anne is increasingly torn between her enticing new existence and her life before, the body count grows and Jakob realizes he will have to fight for the wife he took for granted.”

 RLJE Films is releasing the film in theaters and on Demand Apr. 16, and then it will debut on Shudder later in the year. Creepshow's second season arrives Apr. 1 on Shudder and AMC+.